Block capping will be something that we do without thinking, because it will be easy with the amount of mastery avaliable to us. But where do we go from there? Should we start filling out the avoidance side of the combat table, reforging Mastery into Dodge/Parry? Or, in order to keep up with the dps who generate increasing threat as their gear increases, will Expertise/Hit be the order of the day?

Here's my logic. Note that I didn't put actual math to work anywhere here, and it's all speculation.

As our avoidance improves, our effective threat will start going down slightly. If we don't get hit, we don't get Vengeance stacking up. No Vengeance and our threat goes down. Whereas with damage dealers, their damage and threat output directly increases as gear increases. I think it will be worthwhile to go for Expertise/Hit once we have a decent amount of avoidance. Our goal will be to have 102.4% CTC with raid buffs, and once we're at that point gemming Mastery will be useless, because it will go above the cap. The one stat we will never 'cap' is Stamina, and I see gemming for it as very likely later in Firelands.

I think there will be a renewed focus on stamina. I don't expect to see much effort made towards switching from mastery to dodge or parry, because people won't be that far over the block cap to want to sacrifice mastery rating for something only ~30% as good at filling out the combat table. And vengeance should still remain more than adequate for keeping threat at a reasonable level; it's job is to prevent DPS players from taking threat at later tiers, and for at least the second Cata tier it should do its job.

Meanwhile big hitters are just getting bigger, and more stamina pads blows. Expect to gear for mastery (just as you have been) but perhaps gem and reserve at least one trinket for stamina.

Maybe I'm overestimating the amount of spare stats we'll have come Firelands. And with the renewed focus on Stamina, we'll be generating more threat because we'll have higher health pools to build Vengeance from. I predict (very Nostradamus-style, this) that we'll see a rise in demand for avoidance/threat gear with one stat being turned to mastery. But, as you said, we'll see. Release the theorycrafters!

Actually, the "we'll be block-capping easily in Firelands" mantra is probably not correct. I put together sample gear sets last week for the updated MATLAB sims, and the normal mode one only comes out to around 90% aCTC (adjusted CTC, the extra 2.4% is already accounted for, so it's out of 100%). The heroic set is only 95% aCTC. Admittedly, this is with a Stam, Mast/Stam, Parry/Stam gemming strategy, but I've reforged to mastery wherever possible on the gear and have used one mastery trinket.

I'll post the gear sets today in the MATLAB thread for further scrutiny, if anyone wants to take a look and make suggestions.

theckhd wrote:Admittedly, this is with a Stam, Mast/Stam, Parry/Stam gemming strategy, but I've reforged to mastery wherever possible on the gear and have used one mastery trinket.

In terms of trinkets, dual-mastery looks like it will be the way to go. The tank trinkets have really odd on-use effects, Spidersilk Spindle is a nice safety net but would be better if we could plan the use. I can reasonably see picking up the Mastery/Strength on-use trinket from Avengers of Hyjal and using that in combination with the reliable Mirror for most fights.

Stacking mastery looks like it will be the order of the day again. At least it's not threat stats.